


you've got me tied down

by marcel



Series: couch party verse [1]
Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Also Kissing, Alternate Universe, M/M, Napping, Sharing a Bed, extremely mild d/s undertones, featuring Lee Pace as Rupert Chatwin, non-magical grad school au, very mild hair-pulling kink
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-08
Updated: 2020-01-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:33:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,756
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22167184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/marcel/pseuds/marcel
Summary: Quentin cuts off when his brain catches up to his rambling and drops his gaze self-consciously. Of all the times to over-share, Half A Drink Deep in Eliot Waugh's Kitchen might really be the worst he's ever managed. He takes another sip and raises his glass a little, fighting the urge to cringe. "And I'm a lightweight," he finishes, trying for a joking tone. "But you probably guessed that already."He risks a glance up at Eliot to find the other boy looking back at him with a smile, but it's not mean or jeering like Quentin had expected, it’s… soft, almost. It throws him so much that he forgets to look away, even when Eliot reaches out to take the half-empty drink from his hand. "I won't say the thought hadn't crossed my mind," Eliot hums, swapping out Quentin's glass for his own full one.or: Quentin falls asleep at a house party and wakes up in Eliot's lap, to his horror (and Eliot's endearment), but at least it’s a hell of a conversation starter.
Relationships: Quentin Coldwater/Eliot Waugh
Series: couch party verse [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1627555
Comments: 64
Kudos: 470





	you've got me tied down

**Author's Note:**

> hello and welcome to I Took A 2 Year Break From Writing Fic And Then The Magicians. i hope u enjoy this extremely indulgent Everyone Is Queer And In Grad School AU because i have a lot to say!!!!
> 
> thank u becca for finding all my dumb autocorrect spelling mistakes, thank u every magicians fic writer who was fuelled by righteous rage to create the best fix-it fics ive ever read in my life, and EXTREME thank u to nicole for getting me into this show in the first place and encouraging me for all near-17k of this. it's all for u.

"Alright, I'm about to head out," Julia announces, striding into the kitchen and setting her purse down on the counter. "Before I go, and I swear this is the last time I'll ask—" She turns to Quentin with a hopeful grin. "Are you _sure_ you don't want to come?"

"I'm sure," Quentin says, glancing up at her with a thin smile. "Thanks, though." He goes back to staring at the textbook open on the table in front of him, willing himself to take in the words. He's starting to think he might have been reading the same sentence for the third time when Julia came down the hall.

He sees her cross her arms out of the corner of his eye, and looks up in time to catch her frowning at him. "What?"

"I just wish you'd give it a chance," Julia sighs. "I really think you'd have a good time, Q."

Quentin taps his fingers on the side of his long-cold tea mug, trying not to let his impatience show. They've been talking in circles about this for the past couple days, ever since Julia got invited to some end-of-term house party. The actual end of term is still a week off and Quentin is acutely aware of how many readings he still has left to do, hence his current struggle with his textbook, but Julia is insistent that a night out would do him some good, and Quentin is running out of ways to politely disagree.

It doesn't help that he's coming off a long night of insomnia - a long few nights, actually, but last night he'd had the great idea to pass the time by writing a paper he'd been putting off, and when it was done it was 7AM and he's been looking forward to getting back into bed ever since, whether he sleeps or not. 

"You’re way more likely to have a good time than I am,” he says lightly. "I mean, I don't even _know_ Todd."

"You don't _have_ to know Todd," Julia insists. "The point is to go and hang out and relax. It’ll be fun, Q, I swear.”

“You’ve said that before, and it never is,” Quentin mumbles, swirling the dregs at the bottom of the mug. Granted, his inability to enjoy past parties could have had something to do with how they all took place during college when he didn't have any friends beyond Julia, but grad school parties are probably the same, right? Especially for someone as perpetually awkward as he is. “Or it's fun for you, but not for me.”

“Well, it _really_ won’t be fun if you go in expecting to hate it,” Julia points out, but she comes around the table to give his shoulder a comforting squeeze. “You’re supposed to talk to people, mingle a little. Make friends.”

"You know it's not that easy," Quentin sighs. He uncurls from his chair perch and stands up, slipping out from under Julia's hand to take his mug to the sink. He has to fish out the cold, overused teabag before he rinses it - some Sleepytime blend that was supposed to make him tired. It hasn't worked yet, but there's a three-quarters-full box of it in the cupboard, and he's holding out to get lucky on the fifth try. Or maybe the sixth.

He pauses with his hand halfway to the cupboard and glances back at Julia, gone suspiciously quiet. Sure enough, she has the familiar look on her face that means she's considering backing out of plans to stay home with Quentin. It's something he swore he would stop letting her do, no matter how much he might want her to.

"It's fine, Jules," he assures her, pasting on a smile. "I'm probably just gonna go to bed, anyway." Whether his brain will let him sleep is another story entirely, but he has all night to figure it out.

Julia frowns a few seconds longer, but eventually relents with a sigh. "Okay, if you're sure."

"Yep." Quentin holds the smile until she turns away to pull on her coat, then goes back to the cupboard. If there's one thing he'll get by the end of this box, it'll be the assurance of whether or not Sleepytime tea is a scam.

"I'll text you when I'm on my way back," Julia calls to him from the door. "Oh, and I'll tell Eliot you said hi."

Quentin promptly fumbles the box and scatters half the teabags across the counter. "You'll— fuck. You'll what?"

"I'll say hi to Eliot, if I see him." Julia pauses with one hand on the doorknob, watching him nearly drop the other half in the sink. "You alright?"

Trying his absolute hardest to look and sound casual, Quentin gingerly puts the box down and turns to face her. "Eliot's going to be there?"

Julia gives him a weird look. "Yeah, of course. It's at his house."

"What? I thought you said this was Todd's party."

"Oh my god, Q, that was a joke," Julia laughs, stepping back from the door. "Eliot and Margo are hosting. Todd just lives with them."

Quentin blinks at her a few times before he finds his words again. "Did I, like, zone out the first time you explained this? Or were you really holding back this vital information until two seconds before you left?"

"I thought you knew!" Shaking her head, Julia takes a jacket of Quentin's off the coat rack and holds it out. "Seriously, I would've mentioned Eliot _way_ earlier if I knew it would change your mind."

"It didn't," Quentin insists, but Julia holds her ground, raising her eyebrows expectantly. Quentin gives in after a few seconds, grudgingly taking the jacket and heading off to find his shoes. There's no point in fighting it when Julia knows she's right.

While he's patting down his pockets for the familiar shapes of wallet-phone-keys, Quentin takes a moment to give himself a quick once-over in the hall mirror. He'd showered the night before in an effort to remind his brain what bedtime was about - it hadn't worked, but at least it's one less thing to worry about now. He's definitely looked worse after getting more sleep than he's currently had, and that's enough of a win that he lets Julia tug him out the door without complaint. 

It's only about a twenty-minute walk from their apartment to Margo and Eliot's house. Julia suggests cutting through campus, which saves them a few crosswalks and is a much quieter route than the city sidewalks would be, and Quentin agrees, having no problem with avoiding the holiday crowds and foot traffic. It's not until they're nearing the opposite edge of campus that he notices Julia biting her lip, and begins mentally counting down the seconds until she breaks.

To her credit, she lasts another whole minute. "So," she starts, almost aggressively casual. "You and Eliot."

Quentin shakes his head with a laugh. "I knew you weren't going to let this go."

"It's my sworn duty as your best friend," Julia says, waving him off. "Now tell me everything."

"About what, me and Eliot? There's not much to tell." He and Eliot aren't in the same year or the same department, but when his advisor found Quentin a work placement at the campus library, Eliot had been the one to show him around on his first day. He hadn't seemed enthusiastic about being assigned to train the newbie, but dutifully led Quentin into the stacks with a cart full of books to be reshelved.

"Please tell me you can figure out the Dewey Decimal system yourself," he had drawled, glancing back at Quentin halfway through the Philosophy section. "It's not exactly a titillating experience to explain."

"I already know it," Quentin had said, and then panicked a little when Eliot fully stopped to turn and give him a bewildered look. "I, uh, spent a lot of time in libraries as a kid. Eventually you wonder what the numbers are for."

He expected Eliot to laugh, or to take the opportunity to ditch the cart and leave him by himself, or maybe both - but after a second Eliot smiled at him like Quentin had done something impressively unexpected.

"Well, that shaves about half an hour off this orientation," he'd sighed, then folded down to sit on the floor with his feet propped up on the base of the book cart. When Quentin didn't immediately follow suit, he looked up and patted the carpet next to him. "Come, sit. I have gossip I've been dying to share with someone who isn't involved."

Quentin had hesitated, kind of blown away that Eliot was still talking to him, let alone enticing him to slack off together. It felt a bit like being invited to sit at the table with the cool kids - if the table was letting a hot, charismatic guy he met ten minutes ago tempt him into ditching work for the rumour mill. Not that Quentin needed much tempting.

He sat gingerly beside Eliot, curling up with an arm around his knees. Eliot's legs seemed a mile long, stretched across the aisle, and it took Quentin a moment to wrench his eyes away and focus on the preface Eliot was meticulously laying out. The gossip he had been so eager to spread was actually several weeks worth of music department drama, and catching Quentin up took much more than half an hour. No one came looking for them though, so Quentin slowly let himself relax, doing his best to listen intently. He was distracted only a few times by Eliot re-crossing his ankles or gesturing for emphasis, but always zoned back in when Eliot looked to him for a reaction - which wasn't hard to give. The picture he painted of his department was stunning in its complexity and depravity, and he laughed when Quentin told him as much.

"I aim to please," Eliot said, standing up just to take a little bow, then turned to finally start pawing through the books on the cart. "Feel free to tell me about how fucked up _your_ department is."

So Quentin did, relaying his limited knowledge of the latest scandal among English advisors he had heard from Julia. He didn't have nearly as much detail or storytelling skill as Eliot, and it was maybe a little out of order, but Eliot nodded along with interest all the same. He even asked about Quentin's program and got that surprised-but-impressed look again before remembering another piece of related faculty drama and launching off on it. It was comfortable, Quentin realized, listening to him go on, more comfortable than he ever thought he could be on his first day at a new job at a new school - and Eliot as a new friend might be the hardest to believe, but there he was anyway.

Quentin had been worried at first that his afternoon with Eliot would be a one-time thing, but whether through scheduling coincidence or there being way less library employees than he thought, he works mostly the same days Eliot does. Sometimes there's real work to be done, or requests to be filled, or the acting-head librarian Alice needs one of them to carry boxes or hold the ladder while she hunts down whatever very old and very specific textbook edition some poor doctorate student has begged her for - but when that's done, or sometimes even if it's not, Eliot shows up with a conspiratorial smile to whisk Quentin away into the shelves with a cart full of books that should not take more than an hour to sort through and reshelve, even if Eliot is only halfway through his in-depth summary of whatever TV show or film that he's currently scandalized Quentin has not seen. Not that Eliot is the only culprit; Quentin has spent his fair share of company time trying to explain various inane details of _Fillory and Further_ to Eliot who, for someone who insists he hasn’t read the series, seems to intuit an awful lot about the plot.

But even on days when they don't get a chance to do much more than roll their eyes at each other across the room, or days when Quentin is too tired to keep up his half of the conversation, Eliot just has a way of making every worry Quentin has seem far away. It's... easy, to be around him. Effortless like it isn't with so many others. Quentin thought at first that Eliot was only sticking with their reshelving routine to take a break or to avoid being asked to do anything else, but after a week or so of watching him press book spines carefully into place, and the one quiet evening shift where he reverse-alphabetized an entire shelf just to fix it while Quentin recited the entire first chapter of _The World in the Walls_ from memory, he started to wonder if maybe Eliot kept bringing the book cart around not to avoid other tasks, but to spend time with him.

But he’s probably projecting. Quentin shakes his head. “We’re just coworkers.”

“Don’t be so modest,” Julia chides him. “According to Alice, the amount of work you two don’t get done is astounding.”

Quentin smiles, sheepish. “In our defense, Alice can do more in an hour than I can in a whole day.”

“She agrees with you on that, don’t worry.” Snickering, Julia bumps their shoulders together. "But tell me about Eliot. I don't know him nearly as well as you."

"Well, he's… tall," Quentin says, letting out a long breath. "Kind of intense. Dramatic?" He catches Julia grinning at him again and shoves her away playfully. "He has an opinion about everything and has a way of making you agree with him about all of them."

Julia nods along. "As long as he doesn't bully you out of liking stuff he hates."

"I'm not a total pushover," Quentin assures her, then smiles wryly. "I actually— the other day, I told him about that paper I wrote in undergrad, about Fillory?" Julia gasps in mock-reverence, and he laughs. "Yeah. So, if he was going to ditch me for not being cool enough, or whatever, it would've happened by now."

"Good," Julia says, and she really does looks pleased about it.

They turn one last corner and start up the tree-lined street that their destination sits at the end of. The sun went down hours ago and the moon is out, just barely visible through the branches arched above them when the wind blows. Julia pulls her collar up a bit and frowns. "Hey, did Eliot mention anything about this party to you?"

"I don't think so," Quentin says. He's pretty sure he would have remembered that, but then again, the Todd situation caused a lot of confusion. "Why?"

Julia hums. "Well, I heard that he and Margo used to host a lot of stuff. Like, holiday or not, any excuse to throw a party and they would do it. Apparently it was near-constant last year."

"Really?" It doesn't seem impossible, based on some of Eliot's stories of undergrad debauchery, but in those he'd made it sound like a thing of the past. "I had no idea."

"Me neither. I think they did something small for the start of term, but nothing since then." Julia furrows her brow. "They didn't even do anything for Halloween, which apparently used to be their favourite."

"Huh. Weird."

"Yeah. I wonder what happened."

"I guess people change," Quentin says, looking up the street for the house, but the dark and the trees make it impossible to see how close they are. "Their neighbours probably appreciate it."

"God, I can imagine," Julia laughs, then turns to him again. "Hey, if this is their first party in months, why didn't Eliot invite you himself?"

Quentin shrugs. "I don't know. Maybe he doesn't think we're that close."

Julia rolls her eyes. "Maybe he assumed you already knew. Or maybe he was nervous!"

"I don't think Eliot gets nervous," Quentin says, trying and failing to picture it.

"Sure he does," Julia huffs. "Maybe you've just never seen it because he's always making an effort to be suave around you."

Quentin laughs out loud at that, but Julia seems serious. "What, you don't think he could be into you?"

"I don't think I'm even on his radar," Quentin snorts. He's fairly certain he has no chance in hell with Eliot, which is fine. Talking about it feels like talking about winning the lottery - fun to imagine, but he knows better than to hope. Besides, the way Eliot talks about past boyfriends and dates makes it sound like he's always on-and-off with various guys at any given moment, and that's not really something Quentin wants to get in the middle of with an ill-advised crush. "I can barely ask him what he's doing on the weekend without stuttering. I really don't think there's much potential there."

Julia frowns, but gives him a mischievous sidelong glance. "Well, for what it's worth, I have it on good authority that he's single right now."

Quentin resists the urge to roll his eyes back at her. "Again, he's not exactly in my league. It's fine, Jules," he cuts her off before she can fight him any further. They're nearing the house now, faint music and laughter drifting over to them as it emerges beyond the trees. "We've known each other for like three months. We're friends. It's good how it is. Nothing needs to change, okay?"

Julia looks like she has a lot more to say on the subject, but they've almost reached the yard where some other guests are milling around, so she gives him one last We'll Talk Later look before dropping it, and hooks her arm through his.

Quentin breathes a quiet sigh as she leads him up the driveway towards the door. He's had unfortunate crushes before, after all, and he knows how to deal with them. Tonight, he's going to put it as far out of his mind as he can manage and try to have a good time - it doesn't even sound that difficult, if he'll be hanging out with Eliot. Maybe this party won't be anything like the others he's been to. Maybe he'll even have some of that fun Julia is always talking about.

The door opens before they can knock, and they're welcomed inside by a boy Quentin doesn't recognize. This must be Todd, he figures, assuming Margo and Eliot wouldn't just enlist some random guest to play doorman. Todd just looks happy to be there, and seems genuinely enthusiastic about taking their coats. 

Julia spots someone she knows almost immediately and crosses the room to greet them, but Quentin hangs back with Todd for a moment. "Hey, uh," he starts, hoping it comes out casual, "do you know if— have you seen Eliot?"

"Not since he told me to handle door duty," Todd says, gesturing with a coat hanger. "But you can ask Margo. I think she's in the kitchen."

Quentin has only ever seen Margo in passing when she shows up at the library to wait for Eliot. The one time Eliot actually introduced them, she gave Quentin a truly nerve-wracking once over before declaring him 'cute, for a nerd'. Either way, he's not sure he can handle being scrutinized by Margo if he asks her where Eliot is - having Julia tease him the whole walk over was bad enough.

He does a quick exploratory circuit of the house instead, through the living room to the hallway, a peek into the crowded kitchen, the backyard patio, the staircase to the second floor and back again - but Eliot doesn't seem to be around. And there are a _lot_ of people in the house that Quentin has never seen before in his life. He tries his best to tamp down the anxiety he can feel rising and goes back to the living room to find Julia.

If she can read the unease on his face she doesn't say anything, but she makes room for him in the little circle she's joined and introduces him to a few of her friends. They seem nice enough, but it doesn't take long for them to drop the small talk and go back to whatever inside joke they were discussing originally. Quentin sits quietly beside Julia and does his best to look interested until she sees someone else she knows, and the whole thing starts over.

He ends up just following her around, basically clinging to her sleeve while she tries her best to include him. It feels exactly like every other party she's taken him to, and he can't even really bring himself to be surprised - this is what he said would happen, after all. He can tell Julia feels bad about it, but knowing he's keeping her from having a good time is even worse.

The next time her friends get up, heading to the backyard to find someone named Josh who apparently brought weed, Quentin hesitates on the threshold of the kitchen’s sliding door. Julia turns back with a concerned look, so Quentin makes himself smile.

“I’ll join you in a bit,” he tells her, and then fishes for the first excuse that comes to mind before she can offer to stay with him. “I’m gonna... find a drink.”

She seems satisfied enough with that, if not a little surprised, and waves as he slides the door closed. Quentin waits until she's across the yard with her friends before he lets his expression drop with a sigh. The anticipatory adrenaline that fueled him on the walk over has worn off, and he’s back to the level of sleep-deprived exhaustion he started with - or maybe he's past that now, with the added bonus of having gotten his hopes up only to be disappointed. Either way, he bypasses all the alcohol on the kitchen counter and weaves between the other guests loitering in the hall until he’s back in the living room.

To his surprise, it’s practically deserted, save a couple people literally on their way out the door. It seems like most of the party is either grouped up in the kitchen or finding their way outside like Julia’s friends. Even Todd has left his post.

Relieved, Quentin flops down on the empty couch, curls up in one corner and closes his eyes, letting out a long breath. He'll just rest here for a bit, he decides. He can find something to read on his phone for a few minutes, just until Julia comes back inside, then he can make an excuse to leave. For now, he's taking advantage of having the room to himself. He's so tired, and the chatter in the kitchen isn't so loud he can't ignore it, and the couch is pretty comfortable, all things considered…

He makes one bleary attempt to dig his phone out of his pocket but gives up when his eyes stubbornly refuse to open. He supposes napping doesn't sound so bad either, since he's basically halfway there. It might not be the most polite thing to do at a house party, but hopefully Julia will wake him up soon, and if not - well, Quentin doesn't know any of these people anyway, and they'll probably forget about him soon enough.

\--

Quentin does get woken up, not with an abrupt shoulder shake like he expected, but in a slow swimmy way of gradually becoming aware that the voices around him aren't part of a dream anymore. In fact, they seem a lot louder now than the background noise of party chatter he had fallen asleep to. He must have slumped over at some point, no longer pressed against the arm of the couch but curled up across half of it, and there's something soft under his cheek, but he doesn't remember grabbing a pillow. Something's tickling his ear, too, combing softly through his hair.

Slowly and confusedly, Quentin opens his eyes, turning his head to try to find the source of the soft touch. He gets a breathtaking low view of Eliot and basks in it for a moment before his brain catches up and he realizes what's happened - he's somehow ended up with his head in Eliot's lap. Eliot has one hand in Quentin's hair, petting him gently while he's deep in conversation with Margo on the other side of the couch. 

Quentin keeps carefully still, entirely prepared to just shut his eyes and pretend to sleep until everyone goes home, but Margo glances down and catches his eye.

"Hey, sleeping beauty," she coos, breaking into a grin.

Eliot looks down at Quentin too, smiling like he's— pleased? Amused? It's hard to read from this angle, but either way Quentin has to sit up before he bursts into flames with the force of his blush.

Once he's vertical he realizes just how many people are sitting around them - both armchairs across from the couch are occupied, as well as the floor around the coffee table, and there's even a few guests milling around behind the couch. Quentin is suddenly sure he can feel everyone's eyes on him. He nearly jumps when Eliot's hand brushes his arm, then realizes how close they're still sitting and springs off the couch entirely.

"Sorry," he splutters, trying his best to back away without tripping over himself. "I didn't mean to— I-I'll just, um—" Someone crosses between him and the couch, and Quentin takes the opportunity to turn on his heel and escape through the nearest doorway.

He stumbles down the hall and into the empty kitchen, feeling almost sick with embarrassment. He’s not sure how many people actually saw him sleeping on Eliot, but he’s fairly certain he can get over it as long as he never crosses paths with anyone at this party ever again. Becoming a shut-in doesn’t seem so hard, he considers, leaning over the sink. In fact, it sounds like the ideal option when he thinks about how he’ll have to go back through the living room to find his coat when he leaves. Maybe Julia will grab it for him - but he has no idea where Julia is.

Before Quentin can decide what to do, a group of girls joins him in the kitchen, crowding around the pitchers of sangria on the counter. Quentin quickly picks up an empty wine bottle and does his best to look like he’s preoccupied with something beyond hiding from the rest of the party - but he can only pretend to read the label for so long before it’s unbearably awkward, so he slips past the girls and out the sliding door onto the back patio.

It’s colder outside than it was when he and Julia arrived, and without his jacket Quentin is on the verge of shivering almost as soon as he shuts the door. He crosses his arms over his chest and shuffles to the edge of the porch. At least Josh and the rest have moved somewhere else, so the entire backyard is quiet and empty. He’ll just hang out here for a bit, or until Julia is ready to leave, or until his teeth start chattering. Totally fine.

After a few minutes he hears the door slide open again, the sounds of the party filtering out. Quentin sighs and watches his breath float away in clouds, bracing himself to go look for another hiding spot - although, if it's the girls from the kitchen moving outside, maybe he can go back in.

When he turns around to check, though, the person sliding the door closed is Eliot, by himself.

Quentin's brain refuses to process this for a few long seconds. He stares silently as Eliot wanders over to him, somehow making it look casual even though he must be freezing in just his shirt and vest. He stops beside Quentin and lets out a long breath that disperses in the air between them. 

"Kind of cold out," he says eventually, gently knocking his shoulder into Quentin's.

Quentin swallows roughly, trying to ignore the twinge of shame he feels at being caught hiding. "Just a bit, yeah."

Thankfully, Eliot doesn't call him on it. "Josh moved to the front yard, if you're out here looking to smoke."

"Oh, uh, no," Quentin says, and hesitates for a moment before turning to face him. "Have you seen Julia, actually?"

“As far as I know, she got roped into the pizza pick-up crew with Kady and James," Eliot says, then grimaces. "By the way, do me a favour and never tell anyone you were served _pizza_ at an event hosted by Margo and I. We're never letting Todd have any menu input ever again."

Quentin isn't quite clear on what's so bad about pizza, but he's also not quite willing to ask. "Sure," he agrees. "Do you know how long they'll be?"

Eliot gives him a long-suffering look. "Well, Penny only likes this one place that's essentially across town and doesn't deliver, because of course it doesn't," he explains, rolling his eyes. "They're also stopping somewhere to pick up wine for a sangria refill, provided Kady remembers that part, but Julia was nominated in hopes that she’d be able to keep the others on track, so the outlook is good. On the wine front, at least.” 

"Okay," Quentin says carefully, feeling like he missed an important step somewhere. "So… what, like, half an hour, maybe?"

"Probably, yeah," Eliot says with a shrug. He catches Quentin's gaze and holds it for a moment. "Is Julia your ride home?"

Quentin turns away guiltily. He probably should've known he wouldn't be able to hide how bad he wants to leave, especially from the host of the party. "No, we walked here, but..." He trails off and shakes his head. "It's fine, I'll just wait for her."

They're both quiet for a few long seconds, but Quentin can feel Eliot's eyes on him.

"You're going to wait out here?" Eliot eventually asks.

"I guess."

Eliot hums, and Quentin expects him to leave it at that and go back inside - but instead he steps closer to slide his arm around Quentin's shoulders. "Look, honestly, I love the drama of that concept," he says, gently turning Quentin away from the yard, "except the part where we both inevitably get hypothermia."

Quentin blinks at him in confusion. "We both—? Whoa, you don't have to stay outside."

"And neither do you," Eliot says, with enough finality that Quentin doesn't protest any further. It really is cold on the porch, and the warmth of Eliot's arm even through Quentin's hoodie makes him shiver a little. Eliot seems to take that as a concession, steering Quentin back inside through the sliding door.

Stepping into the pleasant heat of the kitchen is like an instant defrost, made all the nicer by the room being empty of other guests. Quentin revels in it for a moment, forcibly unclenching his shoulder muscles from how rigidly he'd set himself against the cold. He relaxes under Eliot's arm just in time for Eliot to slide off him and start rolling up his shirt sleeves.

The loss of contact is a little disappointing, but Quentin shoves that thought away, reminding himself of the reason he wanted to hide out somewhere in the first place. Besides, saving Quentin from freezing to death like a dumbass probably meets the quota of time Eliot allocated to spend with him, even without counting the period of Quentin using him as an accidental pillow.

Suddenly being in the kitchen doesn't feel so great anymore. Quentin glances at the door, already thinking of other places he could sulk undisturbed, but Eliot catches his arm before he can take more than half a step. 

"What were you drinking earlier?" he asks, tugging him over to the various alcohols open on the counter.

“I, uh, wasn't,” Quentin admits.

Eliot gives him a scandalized look. “Did Todd not put a drink in your hand as soon as you walked in, as I specifically instructed? On second thought, that’s probably for the best. That boy can barely mix a screwdriver.” He waves a dismissive hand and smiles at Quentin again. “What can I make you?”

Quentin takes in all the different bottles on the counter and tries in vain to remember the last time he ordered a drink. “Something with, um, vodka? Maybe?”

With a nod, Eliot lets him go and opens a cabinet to pull out two glasses. Quentin resists the urge to cross his arms again, trying actively to make himself relax. It's just him and Eliot now - for the time being, at least - but he still feels awkward and out of place, too aware of all the other people just a room away, residual embarrassment still lingering in his mind.

Eliot draws him out of his thoughts when he speaks up, twisting the caps off several bottles. "So, I definitely didn't peg you as someone interested in partying. I would have invited you directly, if I knew."

"Oh, I'm— I'm not, really," Quentin explains haltingly. "I mean, I've been to parties before, I just don't usually… enjoy them much."

Humming, Eliot leans down to eyeball the measurement of whatever he's pouring. "Can I ask why?"

"Yeah, it's just, uh. A lot of people, usually all strangers, a lot of noise…" he trails off until Eliot looks up at him again, then shrugs. "Not exactly my ideal outing."

"Didn't think so," Eliot says, straightening up and selecting a different bottle. He pauses before pouring, giving Quentin a more careful look. "I know appearances can be deceiving, and all that, but you don't really seem the... type."

Quentin snorts. "You mean I seem like I'd rather be at home with a book than here getting drunk."

Laughing, Eliot goes back to his measurements. "You said it, not me."

“It’s okay, I’ve been giving off super-nerd vibes for twenty years,” Quentin says wryly. “At this point it would be worse if I didn’t know.”

“You do work in a library,” Eliot points out.

“So do you,” Quentin laughs. “Which, if we’re talking about not seeming the type—“

“That is hardly the same,” Eliot cuts him off, grimacing in mock-offense. “There’s a whole hot librarian sub-genre. Alice is a perfect example of the classic archetype, and I'm a variation for the modern queer."

"Sounds like you've thought about this a lot."

"I have, but that's not the point." He puts down the last bottle and turns to give Quentin as serious an expression as he can manage while they're both trying not to grin and ruin it. "You have to admit me being a librarian is much more likely than you being a secret party animal."

"Fair," Quentin concedes with a snicker.

"So what made you want to come tonight?" Eliot asks, going back to the drinks. He digs a pinch of something out of another container on the counter and sprinkles it over both glasses with a flourish. "Did Julia talk you into it, or…?"

Quentin thinks about how quickly he had given in as soon as Julia mentioned Eliot and swallows down nervous laughter. "Um, sort of? I'm trying that whole… 'getting out of your comfort zone' thing." It's not really a lie - once and then never again still counts as trying, right?

Eliot grins at him. "Always glad to help with that." He tosses an ice cube into each finished drink and holds one out to Quentin, who takes it somewhat gingerly.

It's a deep coral colour, like blood orange, with sugar along the rim. Quentin stares down at it until he notices Eliot watching him with an expectant look, then takes a hesitant sip. It's sweet, peach and something else, and just the tiniest bit bubbly. He can just barely taste whatever alcohol Eliot put in, but he's sure there's a lot of it.

He takes another, bigger sip and Eliot looks pleased. "Good?"

Quentin nods, licking sugar crystals off his lips. "Yeah, its… wow. Thank you."

“It’s the least I can do to make up for being such an abysmal host that you fell asleep during the party,” Eliot says with a wry smile, taking a sip of his own drink. “I don’t think Margo is ever going to let me live that down.”

"It's not your fault," Quentin says, frowning. "I was tired when I got here, and I don't really know anyone except Julia. She was introducing me to all these people, her friends, but that's exhausting even on a good day, and I'm just, like, following her around and hoping I'll eventually start having fun so she can relax without worrying about me, and—" He cuts off when his brain catches up to his rambling and drops his gaze self-consciously. Of all the times to over-share, Half A Drink Deep in Eliot Waugh's Kitchen might really be the worst Quentin's ever managed. He takes another sip and raises his glass a little, fighting the urge to cringe. 

"And I'm a lightweight," he finishes, trying for a joking tone. "But you probably guessed that already."

He risks a glance up at Eliot to find the other boy looking back at him with a smile, but it's not mean or jeering like Quentin had expected, it’s… soft, almost. Like Quentin had been telling him something important, rather than anxiously rambling in his direction. It throws him so much that he forgets to look away, even when Eliot reaches out to take the half-empty drink from his hand.

"I won't say the thought hadn't crossed my mind," Eliot hums, swapping out Quentin's glass for his own full one. 

Quentin laughs weakly, still not entirely sure if he's being made fun of or not - his previous party-going experiences say yes, but Eliot quirking an eyebrow at him while he sips from Quentin's glass says… something else. Something that almost lets him forget the mortification of waking up in his lap.

Almost.

"It's just not really my, um, scene, or whatever," Quentin mumbles, looking back down at his - Eliot's - drink with a shrug. "If you want to get back to hosting, I can just, you know. Wait for Julia here."

"Well, interestingly enough, part of hosting is making sure that all my guests are enjoying themselves," Eliot says, pushing off the counter and throwing his arm over Quentin's shoulders again. "This is one party you're not going to spend hiding in the kitchen. In fact—" He looks down at Quentin with a mischievous smile. "You're banned. Let's get you out of here." 

"Banned?" Quentin squeaks, but Eliot just grins and steers him out to the living room, leading him back to the couch he woke up on. Margo and some others are still sitting there - Quentin considers, for a moment, trying to duck out from underneath Eliot's arm, but the warm weight of it is more comforting than he expected. Eliot sits in the middle of the couch beside Margo, and pulls Quentin down next to him.

"Welcome back, sleeping beauty," Margo greets, but it doesn't sound mean, and she's even smiling. Quentin returns it weakly.

"What did we miss?" Eliot asks her, handing Quentin a coaster. "Are you still fighting Penny about his terrible _Buffy_ opinions?"

Margo smiles across the coffee table at a boy in one of the armchairs, presumably Penny. "No, we reached an agreement. Now we're fighting about the terrible IPA he brought."

Penny rolls his eyes over the rim of his drink and flips them off. 

"Quentin, meet Penny," Eliot says, raising his glass in his direction. "He'd have great taste if he wasn't such an asshole about it. And this is Fen."

He gestures at the girl sitting in the other chair, who gives Quentin a wave. She seems a lot more friendly than Penny, so Quentin does a little relieved wave back.

"Now, I'm pretty sure you'll get along, but let me kickstart it anyway," Eliot announces, then plucks Quentin's drink and the coaster out of his fidgeting hands to place both on the table. "Fen, guess which beloved-yet-niche series of children's books Quentin wrote a twelve-page paper about."

Quentin, who has never had this fact about him met with much enthusiasm, is startled when Fen lights up in excitement and begins firing off questions. He gives her a somewhat-stilted elevator pitch and then, with her eager prompting, starts in on the full version - about halfway through which he realizes he's managed to relax. He feels Eliot drape his arm over the back of the couch, brushing Quentin's shoulders, while he settles into an entirely different conversation with Margo and Penny.

It's… nice. And Fen has good Fillory opinions, even if they are different from the sounding board of solely-Julia Quentin has gotten used to. She's even seen a performance of the short-lived Broadway production, which Quentin all but begs her for details about.

"It was mostly about the animals, rather than the Chatwins," she explains, tapping her chin. "And the songs were… interesting, even the ones in French. But it was fairly accurate."

"Not as good as the Westminster theatre one?" Quentin asks.

Fen shakes her head. "But better than the 90s revival."

"Jesus," Penny cuts in, apparently having tuned in during a lull on the other half of the couch. "Are all the movies so bad that people really prefer the stage versions?"

"Oh, there aren't any movies," Fen laughs. "Only theatre productions and radio plays."

Margo leans forward to give her a weird look. "Hang on, your beloved childhood book series never even got the _Harry Potter_ treatment?"

"Not for lack of trying," Quentin says wryly. "Every screen adaptation of _Fillory_ has gotten shelved, or cancelled, or otherwise indefinitely stuck in production hell."

"Since the first ill-fated TV serial in 1964," Fen adds, nodding along.

"Every few years the rights get passed around and someone tries to do something with it, but it never works out," Quentin sighs, picking up his glass and leaning back. "It would be funny if it didn't feel like a weirdly personal cosmic joke."

Eliot pats his shoulder comfortingly.

"Wasn't there a movie in the 80s?" Penny asks, not noticing the dark look that Fen and Quentin immediately exchange. "Or, there nearly was, right?"

Fen gives him a tight smile. "Yes, but we don't talk about it."

"That one deserved production hell," Quentin mutters into his drink.

Penny glances confusedly between them, but Eliot interrupts before he can ask anything else. "So, was there another attempt after that, or was the 80s trash fire it?"

"There was a TV show that almost happened in the mid-2000s," Fen says, brightening up. 

“Oh, I think I remember hearing about that,” Margo says, squinting. “Wasn’t the cast, like, entirely rumours except—“

“Lee Pace as Rupert Chatwin,” Quentin says, and drains his glass.

Eliot laughs in surprise. "Really? I _scoured_ his wiki page when he came out, I can't believe that wasn't mentioned."

"Because it never got to happen, I guess," Fen sighs, then turns to Quentin with a solemn expression. "We were robbed."

"I can't even think about it without getting mad," Quentin says, dragging a hand down his face. "Can you imagine mid-twenties Lee Pace as a fucking— a High King of Fillory? My fourteen-year-old self would've _died_."

Margo looks affronted. "That's late-thirties Lee Pace erasure."

"I never said he isn't hot now," Quentin argues, leaning past Eliot to point at her. "I'm saying he was also hot fifteen years ago, and I'll never forgive the BBC."

Eliot raises his eyebrows, looking thrown for a split second before he gives Quentin a small, pleased smile. Quentin returns it, confused. "What?"

"Just picturing tween Q, ready to sue for damages," Eliot says, shaking his head and looking away, across to Fen. "What year was this, anyway? It must have been before his Emmy nom."

"Right before, actually," Fen confirms. "When _Fillory_ fell through, he did _Pushing Daisies_ instead."

"At least there's that," Penny says, shrugging.

"And he did the Hobbit movies eventually," Margo points out. "Thranduil was worth it."

"God, was he ever," Eliot sighs, raising his glass.

Quentin frowns, looking to Fen for backup. "Imagine if we had all that _and_ Rupert Chatwin, though."

Beside her, Penny rolls his eyes. "Look, if something had to be sacrificed to get Lee Pace to where he is, I'm glad it was the talking animal TV show and not _The Fall_." Then, reluctantly, after a beat, "no offense."

"Either way, he’s got that Marvel paycheque now," Eliot says, patting Quentin's shoulder again as he pouts. "Surely he gets to pick and choose his projects. Maybe he'll be a different gay wizard soldier."

"That would be nice," Quentin grumbles. He curls up, tucking his legs underneath him and realizing a second too late that he's already leaning on Eliot, basically pressed against his side.

He should probably sit up, or otherwise extricate himself from Eliot's personal space, but… he's comfortable, and Eliot really doesn't seem to mind, judging by how hes gone right back to the conversation at hand. It's something else about Marvel now, and other actors wasted on superhero properties, led by Margo's very heated Gamora opinions. Quentin quickly loses track of it, distracted by the feeling of Eliot's hand now moved from his shoulder to trail almost absent-mindedly through his hair where it's long enough to be caught under his collar.

Maybe it's just the alcohol - however much of it Eliot put in the singular drink he's had - but Quentin feels content, relaxed, and more than a little like he could fall asleep again just like this. It's then, of course, that the front door slams open, startling him out of his position against Eliot as they all wrench around to see who's arrived.

It's a girl Quentin doesn't recognize, with a sharp grin and a stack of pizza boxes, and just behind her, Julia, looking both concerned and amused. Quentin is pretty sure the girl must be Kady, and almost certain that she kicked the door open.

"We back, bitches," Kady announces, raising her bounty of pizzas. The entire house seems to cheer in return.

Todd appears to take the boxes from her, as well as the two clinking bags Julia is holding, and carts it all towards the kitchen. Eliot watches him go somewhat warily, wincing when Todd very nearly trips over the threshold, then sighs and stands up - an easier task than it would've been a minute before, with the new gap between him and Quentin.

"Pardon me while I go supervise Todd," he says, straightening his vest.

Quentin starts to get up too, but Eliot stops him with a hand on his shoulder. "No, no, your kitchen ban still stands," he chides playfully, pushing him back down. "Stay here, I'll be right back."

He tugs on the end of Quentin's hair as he leaves, sending a warm wave across Quentin’s face and down his spine, effectively cutting off any and all protests he was about to make. 

Margo leans over to poke his reddening cheek, giving him a knowing smile when he bats her hand away. "Bring back drinks," she calls to Eliot, draping her legs over Quentin's lap.

Penny and Fen both get up to follow the other guests herding into the kitchen for food, and Julia appears in their wake. Quentin grins, waving her over, and she scurries around the chairs to perch on the coffee table and take his hand.

"You look comfortable," she says, raising an eyebrow at Margo, who's ignoring them in favour of scrolling through something on her phone. 

Quentin glances down at Margo's crossed ankles and shrugs. "How was your fetch quest? I heard you were kind of dragged into it."

Julia rolls her eyes a little. "Yeah, and after spending twenty minutes in the car with both James and Kady insisting they know where to turn, I understand why. It was fine though, no casualties. And we remembered the wine." She smiles, squeezing Quentin's fingers. "Sorry I left without telling you."

"It's okay," Quentin assures her. "I was probably asleep. I, uh… napped."

"I know, I saw," Julia snickers. "I thought about waking you up, but Eliot said he'd look after you."

Quentin blinks. "He did?" Julia must have seen him before he ended up in Eliot's lap, at least, but… does that mean Eliot had just hung around while he slept, making sure no one disturbed him? He thinks, suddenly, unbidden, of Eliot's hand brushing through his hair as he woke up.

It takes real effort to pull himself away from that thought and back to whatever Julia is saying about the party. He hopes his face isn't as red as it feels.

"Anyway," Julia sighs, giving him a proud little smile, "I know it was rough at the beginning, but I'm glad you're having a better time now."

"I am," Quentin says, mostly just to prove he was listening, then pauses, surprised by how much he means it. "I… really am, actually."

Julia squeezes his hand again and starts to say something else, but her eyes dart up to something beyond the couch and she breaks off in a laugh. "Sorry, Kady dared me to try this _offensively_ cheap wine earlier, and now she's flagging me down with it." She stands up to sidle around the table, smiling down at Quentin before she drops his hand. "I'll find you later - or just, text me whenever you're thinking of leaving?"

"Will do," Quentin agrees, and watches her head over to Kady, waiting by the kitchen with a bottle and a grin.

They disappear through the doorway just as Eliot comes through the other direction, holding up two glasses as he makes a path back to the couch. Quentin makes himself turn back around rather than watch him the whole way, and finds Margo smirking at him over the top of her phone.

"What?" he asks, unsure if he should be worried or not.

Margo shrugs innocently, sliding her phone away. "Nothing."

He should definitely be worried, then - but before he gets a chance to question her, Eliot has reached the couch and is handing each of them a drink. "Whiskey sour," he says to Margo, who nods appreciatively, then turns to Quentin. "And same as before."

Quentin mumbles his thanks and does his best not to drop the glass when Eliot presses it into his hand.

Rather than move her legs and give Eliot his spot back, Margo scoots over to the middle cushion herself, right beside Quentin with her feet still in his lap. Eliot gives her a suspicious look, but goes along with the new seating arrangement, sitting on her other side and slinging his arm over the back of the couch again - he's too far to bracket Quentin's shoulders this time, but his hand is close enough that he could touch Quentin's hair again, if he felt so inclined. Quentin drags his eyes away and focuses on his new drink instead. 

"So," Margo says, right as Quentin takes a sip. He panics and ends up swallowing much more of it than he meant to, and while he tries to cough nonchalantly, Margo fixes him with a look he can't read. "This is your first time at _chez nous_ , right? What do you think?"

"It's, uh," Quentin squeaks, then clears his throat. "It's nice?"

Margo raises her eyebrows, unimpressed. "High praise."

"Be gentle," Eliot snickers. "He doesn't get out much."

"I really don't," Quentin agrees. He takes another hurried sip, wondering briefly if this drink has as much hidden alcohol as the first one. "Julia is, um, much better at this than me."

Humming, Margo watches him over the rim of her glass, somehow managing to look both disinterested and intense. "Are you and Julia a thing, or what?"

Quentin nearly chokes on his drink again trying not to laugh. "No, we're just— she's my best friend," he explains, unable to keep from smiling as he says it. "She's like my sister. I've known her forever."

"Cute," Margo says, smiling back at him now. "Is there anybody else?"

Confused, Quentin glances between her and Eliot. "That I'm friends with?"

"That you're _dating_ ," Margo clarifies, while Eliot stifles laughter. "You know, a girlfriend?"

"Oh," Quentin says, sheepish. "Then, uh, no, I don't have a girlfriend." And then, because he vowed years ago to never let anyone get away with mistaking him for straight - "Or a boyfriend."

Margo gasps in delight. "Quentin Coldwater, an out bisexual?" 

He nods, trying and failing to bite back a smile, and gives her some jazz hands for good measure. "Surprise."

Margo, to her credit, seems more surprised by the _out_ part than the _bi_ part, but Quentin is just happy she isn’t giving him that interrogatory look anymore, and when she laughs it feels like he's passed a test. "I knew I could trust you, Q," she sighs, laying her head on his shoulder. "Welcome to team bi-con, honey. We outnumber Eliot now."

"I am _right_ here," Eliot says, affronted, but he’s smiling too when Quentin sneaks a glance at him.

Margo waves him off. "Oh hush, you already had a chance to cuddle. It’s my turn now." She reaches up to pat Quentin's cheek. "If you ever want to know who the eligible bachelors or bachelorettes are in any given room, I'm your girl."

Quentin grins, feeling light in a way that has nothing to do with the alcohol. "Um, thanks, I think."

With one last nuzzle, Margo sits up, just as Penny returns to the couch. 

"Not sure if this is as big of a deal as it was last time," he says, gesturing over his shoulder, "but Josh is about to attempt a batch of sangria." 

"The hell he is," Margo snaps, all softness disappearing abruptly. She takes her legs back from Quentin's lap and stands up, taking just a moment to smooth down her skirt. " _I'll_ handle the sangria, and if Josh stays out of my way, I _might_ let him chop an orange."

Eliot snickers, head lolling back on the couch as she stalks past. "Sic 'em, Bambi."

"You know I will," Margo says, turning back to wink at him. "Don't get in too much trouble without me, you two."

Quentin watches her follow Penny out of the room, leaving him and Eliot on opposite ends of the couch. He glances at the empty middle seat and very suddenly does not want anyone else to sit there, between them. As nonchalantly as he can, he shifts sideways on the couch and, taking a page from Margo's book, drops his feet in Eliot's lap.

If Eliot is surprised, he doesn't show it. "If you're wondering," he says, turning a bit to face him, "'last time' was when Josh, ah, _edited_ the punch recipe and half the party got _very_ high before he remembered to tell Margo what the secret ingredient was."

Quentin nods along. "So Josh is… your drug dealer? Or, Margo's drug dealer?"

"He's Margo's ex," Eliot corrects him. "And he's everyone's drug dealer." He slips his free hand around Quentin's ankle, holding it there. Quentin feels the gentle touch all the way up his spine and tries very hard to keep his breathing even. "Why, do you need a hookup?"

"No, I already have, uh, medication," Quentin says distractedly. "I don't know how other drugs would react with it."

"Ah." Eliot furrows his brow. "What about alcohol?"

Quentin shrugs. "Not sure. I don't usually drink much, so."

Eliot is quiet for a long beat, and when his grip starts to loosen Quentin glances up to see a guilty look on his face. 

"Oh, it's not— I feel fine," he assures him, but Eliot doesn't look convinced. Quentin presses his heels against Eliot's thigh just in case he tries to get up. "It's not like you were forcing me to drink, okay?"

Scoffing, Eliot looks away. "I don't think I gave you much choice."

"I know what my limit is," Quentin insists, leaning over to try and catch his eye again. "And I know what a bad reaction feels like. This is like, _so_ far from that, it's not even— I'm having a good time, El." Eliot does look back at him then, still unsure but holding his gaze anyway. "This— all this is way better than I thought it'd be."

Eliot searches his face for another few seconds before cracking a hesitant smile. "Coming from anyone else, I'd be insulted by the insinuation that you expected mediocrity."

Quentin beams back at him. "Aren't you glad I'm so easy to please?"

"I don't know if I'd go that far," Eliot says, raising an eyebrow. "I did just hear your Lee-Pace- _Fillory_ -adaptation tirade."

With a huff, Quentin sits up to launch into it again before he notices the playful smirk Eliot isn't even bothering to hide, and deflates a little. "That's different," he says, only a little defensive.

"I'm sure it is," Eliot says innocently. He also moves his other hand from the back of the couch to rest on Quentin's shin, and Quentin mostly forgets what he was mad about. "Look, just tell me if you start to feel sick, or anything, okay? I'll hold your hair back."

Quentin nods, watching Eliot's fingers slide away and thinking about how quickly his second drink hit him. He probably didn't eat enough today - or sleep enough, christ - to do his already-low tolerance any favours.

They stay on the couch while people filter in and out of the living room, some to come over and talk and others just on their way outside. Once or twice Quentin considers moving his legs in case Eliot wants someone else to sit down with them, but Eliot keeps his gentle grip on Quentin's ankle the whole time, even when Margo returns to deliver sangria to them.

She takes one look at their position and smiles knowingly as she hands Eliot one glass - he gives her a fond eye roll in return, and Quentin wonders just how much they can say to each other with one look - and offers the other to Quentin. "Wanna try it?"

Quentin takes a careful sip - it's sharply sweet, fruity, and stronger than it has any right to be. "It's good," he tells her, handing the glass back, "and if I wasn't at my limit before, I sure am now."

Margo seems satisfied enough with that and shrugs, taking her own sip as she disappears again. Quentin leans back against the arm of the couch to rub his eyes. He's getting tired again, and not just from the alcohol. He's pretty sure that if they sit here much longer, he's going to start falling asleep on Eliot a second time. Thinking a change in position might help him refocus, he slips his feet out of Eliot's lap and sits cross-legged instead, but all that does is make Eliot frown.

He watches Quentin try and fail to hide a yawn before he slides over to the middle seat, leaning in close to murmur to him. "Tired?" 

Quentin nods, trying to sit up straighter. "Didn't nap long enough, I guess," he jokes, and Eliot hums in agreement - then reaches out to brush a stray lock of hair behind Quentin's ear. Quentin freezes, blinking at him in surprise, but Eliot just smiles.

"You can lie down upstairs, if you want," he offers. "No one will bug you, my room is off-limits."

Not especially looking to go through the embarrassment of waking up in a room full of people again, Quentin agrees. Eliot's room is bound to be quieter, at the very least. He takes a second to extricate himself from his warm corner of the couch, then follows Eliot out of the room and down the hall.

Eliot leads him to the foot of the stairs, gesturing up to the second floor Quentin didn't dare explore earlier. "Mine's on the right, Todd and Margo are on the left," Eliot tells him, ushering him forward. "The door's open, go ahead."

Quentin gets halfway up the stairs before he realizes that Eliot isn't following, just watching him from the bottom and sending him up by himself. It's a little disappointing - but Eliot is the host, after all, and he's already spent a lot of time with Quentin. It's not very fair to expect Eliot to babysit him all night. Giving him a weak smile, Quentin turns and hurries up the rest of the stairs.

He's pretty sure he could've found Eliot's room even without directions, once he's inside. There are framed posters and art prints on the walls, a full bookshelf beside the window, a vanity with a big mirror and an antique-looking chair, and in the middle a very large, very tidily-made bed with a lot of pillows. Quentin closes the door and leans back against it, taking in everything from the dark hardwood floor beneath the area rug to the gold-accented wallpaper between the frames. He wonders if Eliot put this room together himself or if it was furnished when he moved in, but can't really imagine anything but the former. He does a slow lap of the room, looking at all the trinkets and jewelry adorning most surfaces - he doesn't dare touch anything, partly out of fear of dropping something delicate and partly in case everything is placed just-so in whatever Eliot's version of feng shui is. 

He's leaning in to scrutinize the bookshelf - a lot of classic lit with fancy binding that don't look like they've ever been opened, but also three different but equally-worn copies of _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ \- when the door opens again. Quentin whirls around but its just Eliot, this time balancing two plates of pizza and a glass of water. He closes the door with his hip and raises an eyebrow at Quentin. "Sorry, did I catch you snooping?"

Quentin smiles and looks back at the shelf. "No, I'm just seeing if you've been hiding any Fillory books from me."

"I told you, I've never read them."

"Yeah, and I told _you_ there's no way you could know so much about the Queenswood and the Northern Marsh if you haven't."

"I can't believe I thought drinking might mellow you out," Eliot sighs, but he's smiling when Quentin turns back around. "We'll put a pin in that, okay? Come here, sit." He moves to perch on the edge of the bed, placing the plates in the middle and nudging one towards Quentin. "If you get any crumbs in my sheets, we're done, professionally."

Quentin joins him on the bed, suddenly hungry, and wolfs down the two slices. Eliot, for all he had insinuated about pizza being an unacceptable menu item, has no problem clearing the other plate. He also makes sure Quentin drinks the entire glass of water before letting him even look in the bookshelf's general direction again. 

He stands up afterwards, and Quentin thinks he's going to head back downstairs when he gathers up their plates, but instead he sets them on the nearby dresser and comes back to flop face-first onto the pillows at the head of the bed. "I'll just be a second," he sighs, a little muffled, then rolls onto his back. "I'm starting to think you might have had the right idea, napping as soon as you got here."

"It's not like I was planning on it when I walked in," Quentin snickers, tugging one pillow out from under him. 

"Regardless," Eliot says, folding his hands behind his head. "It's been a relaxing change of pace for how these things usually go."

Quentin shrugs, holding the pillow in his lap and running his fingers over the silky edges of the case. "Maybe you need to invite more nerds."

"We have a one nerd limit, actually," Eliot explains. He gives Quentin a conspiratorial look. "Margo's rules, not mine."

"Yeah?" Quentin grins. "Who was it before me?"

"Nobody," Eliot says, like it's obvious. "It's a curated position. We're getting you a plaque and everything."

Quentin laughs, way more pleased than is probably reasonable - but he thinks about just how much of his evening Eliot has devoted to making sure he's comfortable and hydrated and not drinking in a corner by himself waiting for Julia to be ready to leave, and feels— a little bit overwhelmed, or whatever other emotion makes his throat tight when he looks at Eliot. The urge to say something, to make sure Eliot _knows_ , bubbles up in him.

"Eliot?"

Something must show on his face, because Eliot takes one look and sits up to face him properly, brow furrowed in concern. Quentin swallows hard and tries to smile. "I just— thank you, for, like." He gestures vaguely with the pillow, struggling to find the words. "For not... letting me stay outside."

It's more than that, obviously, that part is barely the tip of it - but Eliot seems to understand. "Oh, Q," he sighs, smiling at him. "You're very welcome. I meant what I said about wanting you to enjoy yourself." After a pause, he shrugs, aloof once again. "We can't have anyone leaving bad Yelp reviews, after all."

Quentin rolls his eyes with a laugh. "I wouldn't dare. I feel like Margo would put out a hit on me if I even thought about it."

"No, she likes you," Eliot assures him. "She'd do the hit herself."

"I'm… honoured, I think?"

"You should be."

Snickering, Quentin goes back to petting the pillow in his lap, only realizing when the silence stretches for a few seconds that Eliot is watching him fidget with it. He hurriedly puts it back in the pile. "Sorry, it's just— soft."

Eliot doesn't really seem to mind, though. "Feel free, it's what they're for," he says, shrugging again, then pauses. "Well, actually, they're for tying the room together with the curtains, but that's more of a just-for-me thing."

Quentin nods, sneaking a glance at the curtains - the pillows don't seem to match them, but he decides to just take Eliot's word on it. "Its very… you," he says, gesturing around the room. "Like, I could tell right away it was your room. That's a compliment," he adds, just in case having identifiable taste is a faux pas in interior design, but Eliot seems pleased.

"I was going to move you up here earlier, when we first found you on the couch," he says, stretching his legs out and leaning back on his palms. "But when I tried to wake you up, you just leaned over onto me."

Quentin laughs, sheepish. "Oh, god, really?"

"Oh, yes. You curled up, sound asleep, not a care in the world for how much I hate ironing these pants," Eliot sighs loftily, but he tilts his head at Quentin with a smirk. "At that point, it just seemed _cruel_ to try to move you."

Groaning, Quentin covers his face. "Ugh, that's embarrassing. I'm so sorry."

"Don't be, it's fine," Eliot says, pawing at Quentin's hands until he lowers them and looks back at him. "It was cute."

Quentin's brain stutters over that and refuses to process anything else for a moment. "Oh," Quentin says weakly. He feels Eliot's hand sliding on top of his, and is suddenly very aware of the space between them - a couple feet when they first sat down - having shrunk to only a few inches.

The overwhelmed feeling climbs up from his chest again, but it's lighter than it was, less panicked and more… anticipatory, like his breath catching in his throat when Eliot smiles and glances away. Quentin wonders if this, too, is just from the alcohol - but it can't be _just_ that, not when it comes and goes with Eliot's proximity to him. Not when Eliot's hand is on his and he can feel the tingling heat from it all the way up his arm.

He opens his mouth before he has any idea what he's going to say, just needing Eliot to look at him again. "Hey."

Eliot looks back at him, an amused smirk playing on his mouth. "Hey."

"Um—" It doesn't take much to lean across the gap between them and kiss Eliot. It's short and soft and Quentin is a little surprised he actually did it, once he pulls back. He watches Eliot blink at him a couple times, like he's surprised too, before a slow smile spreads across his face instead. He slides a hand over the back of Quentin's neck, sending a tingling feeling all the way down his spine as Eliot pulls him in again.

It's sweet. Longer and slower than the first. Eliot tastes just a little bit like tomato and it makes Quentin snicker against his mouth. He feels more than sees Eliot smile.

"Something funny, Coldwater?" he murmurs, sliding the hand on Quentin's neck down over his chest. Before Quentin can even begin to form an answer, Eliot is sitting up and pressing him down, laying him back against the pillows. He pauses there, hovering over him, just long enough for Quentin to start to squirm against his hand holding him in place, then huffs a laugh - but just when he's leaning in again, there's a loud knock at the door.

Quentin freezes, and Eliot pulls back with a short sigh and clears his throat. "Occupied!"

The door swings open anyway, revealing Margo looking both apologetic and annoyed. Quentin has the absurd urge to cover up even though he's fully clothed. "I hate to break this up," she says, leaning almost casually on the doorframe, "but we've got a situation downstairs."

Eliot sits up to look at her properly, keeping his hand on Quentin's chest. "Well, you had enough time to knock, so it must not be an emergency."

"Depends on how long it takes you to come help me deal with it," Margo says with an impatient smile. She glances at Quentin for a second and then back to Eliot, serious now. "I wouldn't cockblock if it wasn't important, El."

They exchange a look that Quentin can't read, but it seems to give Eliot the context he needs. "Hold that thought," he tells Quentin, patting his chest, and slides off the bed to stand up.

Quentin, still processing the feeling of Eliot's hands and mouth on him, nods weakly. "Okay."

Eliot pauses, smiling, then comes back to lean down and kiss him one more time. "Stay here, I'll be back."

And then he slips out of the room, straightening his tie as he goes. Quentin hears him say something to Margo that sounds like ' _Do_ not _give me that look_ ' before the door closes behind him, and their steps down the stairs are muffled like the rest of the noise from the party.

Quentin stays where he is, staring at the ceiling while he waits for his heart rate to return to normal. After a few minutes, when the adrenaline of kissing Eliot has worn off just enough that he can think about other things, he rolls over on his side to get comfortable. He decides to rest his eyes for a bit, since he's not sure how long Eliot will be - and besides, with them closed, it's even easier to remember how his hands felt, how his mouth felt on Quentin's…

\--

"Q. Quentin."

There's a hand in his hair again, brushing gently over his face. "Q, come on. You'll thank me for this, I swear."

"For what?" Quentin mumbles, letting the hands pull him upright.

He squints blearily around the room - Eliot's room, he remembers. It's darker than it was before, lit only by a bedside lamp emitting a dim warm glow. It reflects in Eliot's eyes when he kneels in front of Quentin. "For waking you up to make you brush your teeth. Come on."

Quentin blinks a few times, barely aware of Eliot tugging him to his feet except that he's suddenly standing. "How long was I— what time is it?" 

"Just after midnight," Eliot says, steadying him with a hand on his arm. "You were out cold when I came back, so I went downstairs for a bit to clean up the kitchen."

"Oh." He did come back, though, and that thought sends a little jolt down Quentin's spine. He does his best to ignore it. "Party's over, then?"

Eliot nods, leading him out of the bedroom and down the hall. "There's still a couple people hanging around, but Margo's probably kicking them out soon." Quentin glances down the stairs as they pass them, and the hallway does seem deserted. "She hates waking up to a huge mess. Reminds her of undergrad."

"What about— oh shit," Quentin gasps, stopping in his tracks to pat down his pockets. "I was supposed to text Julia— where's my phone?"

"It's in my room, charging," Eliot tells him, catching his hands and holding them still. "It's fine, Q, I saw her earlier and told her you were staying the night."

Quentin sighs in relief. "Thank you." Eliot just nods, stroking his thumb over the back of Quentin's hand. "Did she leave?"

"Yeah, with Kady and Penny - which I have some opinions about, but I have to confer with Margo before sharing. Anyway." Eliot lets go of one hand and uses the other to lead Quentin past the other bedrooms and into the bathroom, only dropping it when he digs a spare toothbrush out of the cabinet.

He hands Quentin the toothpaste, then gets to work opening what must be five different bottles and creams on his half of the bathroom counter. Quentin watches in fascination as he puts one type of foam on his face and washes it off, only to immediately rub a different foam on - until Eliot catches his gaze in the mirror and smirks. "You alright?"

Quentin flushes and shoves the toothbrush in his mouth. It's then that he remembers the thing he'd actually wanted to say since he'd woken up enough to think of it. 

"What did Margo want?" he asks around a mouthful of toothpaste.

Eliot pauses for a moment - Quentin wouldn't have noticed if he wasn't already back to watching him rinse off the second type of face wash. He pats his face dry with a towel before answering. "Well, I don't know if you've heard this, but Margo and I used to host this type of thing way more often," he says, waving one hand vaguely and swiping a cotton pad over his forehead with the other. "We took a short break and are now trying this thing she calls 'moderation', which is the same thing we used to do, except less often and with a much shorter guest list."

Quentin nods while he brushes, trying not to get too distracted by the mesmerizing way Eliot taps out drops from some other tiny bottle and dabs the liquid onto his face with his fingertips. He seems practiced enough at the routine of the whole thing that he must do it every night, which is equal parts baffling and fascinating to Quentin.

"Anyway, the _situation_ was someone who thought, incorrectly, that he was invited," Eliot continues, twisting the lids back onto their various containers. "He was trying to bully Todd into letting him in, but we handled it. Nothing to worry about."

Frowning around the toothbrush, Quentin leans over to spit in the sink. "Anyone I know?" he asks - unlikely, since he can count on one hand the number of people he knows from even the shortened guest list, but at least he can avoid whoever it is.

"I'd hope not," Eliot says, grimacing in the mirror. He opens one last container and puts one small smear of cream on each cheek, then rubs it gently over the rest of his face. Quentin leans against the other half of the counter, watching him instead of his reflection.

"It was my ex," Eliot says eventually. "Mike. He's an asshole."

"Oh," Quentin says, feeling— protective, all of a sudden. "Are you okay?"

Eliot gives him a confused look. "Why wouldn't I be?"

Quentin flounders for a moment. "I just mean— like, he's your ex, and he showed up at your house? That's kind of stalker-y, or a creepy invasion of boundaries at best."

"I've dealt with worse," Eliot says, giving him a smirk, but it looks flimsy in the mirror. "At least he's being _consistent_ about being an asshole for once, unlike when we were—" He cuts off, shaking his head, and seems to steady himself before speaking again. "Either way, he left, and you will hopefully never have the displeasure of meeting him." 

"Hopefully," Quentin repeats quietly, watching him pick up his own toothbrush. It's hard to argue when Eliot has decided a conversation is over. Something sticks out, though, and he knows it's going to bug him if he doesn't bring it up.

"Why did Todd let me in?" he asks, crossing his arms. "I wasn't actually invited, either."

Eliot looks over at him and seems to relax, just a little. He smiles and reaches out to brush Quentin's hair out of his face again. "That's because once in a blue moon, Todd does something right."

He sticks the toothbrush in his mouth before Quentin can figure out a coherent response, leaving him red-faced and fighting a smile while Eliot innocently cleans his teeth.

After a minute of comfortable tooth-brushing quiet, Eliot gestures at his array of skincare products, silently giving Quentin permission to help himself to it. Quentin looks warily at the assortment for a long, unsure moment until Eliot rolls his eyes and picks out a bottle himself, pressing it into Quentin's hands before leaning over to spit out his toothpaste. "It's a water-based foam cleanser," he says, tapping his toothbrush on the edge of the sink.

"Oh," Quentin says, hoping it sounds like he knows what that means.

Eliot gives him a serious look. "If you're one of those guys who doesn't believe in washing his face, I'm gonna need another drink. And I literally _just_ brushed my teeth."

Quentin uses the cleanser. The foam is nice, actually, and splashing water on his face wakes him up a bit - but his sleepiness comes back in full force the moment they return to Eliot's room. He wriggles tiredly out of his jeans and hoodie and gets into bed, under the covers this time, which is a lot more comfortable than lying on top of the bedspread had been. He rolls over to tell this to Eliot, but the words get stuck in his throat when he looks at him and remembers, very abruptly, that he's never seen Eliot in anything less than two layers.

On the other side of the room, Eliot is undoing the buttons of his vest with quick, practiced ease. He puts it with his unknotted tie on a hanger before moving onto his shirt, and when it slides off his bare shoulders Quentin is caught between the urge to cover his eyes and the desire to never blink again. He does look away when Eliot starts in on his belt, though, burrowing under the covers to turn bright red in peace.

He emerges when he's sure his face is a reasonable shade, and finds Eliot fully changed, folding his slacks before he heads over to the bed. He sleeps shirtless, apparently, and in striped silk pajama pants - although Quentin suspects those might be for his benefit.

It's not until that moment that Quentin's brain catches up to the situation and the reality of Sharing Eliot's Bed With Eliot fully hits him. Eliot doesn't seem bothered at all, just pulls back the other corner of the sheets and climbs on, so Quentin tries to make himself relax. 

It's impossible to ignore the thought once he's had it, though. "Do you do this a lot?" he asks, fighting the urge to fidget.

"Do what?" Eliot asks, pausing with his hand halfway to the lamp. "Go to bed at a semi-reasonable hour after throwing a house party? Yes, Margo calls it 'self-care'. It's another new thing we're trying."

"No, I mean the… this," Quentin tries, gesturing vaguely. "Letting people... sleep in your bed."

Eliot lets out a long breath, looking around his room instead of at Quentin. "Not really," he admits after a moment, mouth twisting. "Or— not recently, anyway. But whatever." He leaves the lamp on and slips under the covers, propping himself up on one elbow beside Quentin. "This is a special case."

Quentin frowns. "How so?"

"Well, for one thing, we're not mid-coitus right now," Eliot says, matter-of-factly. "Usually if I show a boy my bedroom during a party, it's to fuck, and within a few hours they're gone and I'm actively blocking their number."

Feeling his cheeks flush, Quentin curls up a little further. "You don't even have my number," he points out.

Eliot smiles down at him. "Like I said: special case."

"So, are we going to…" Quentin trails off, hoping Eliot will finish the sentence, but he seems dedicated to the puzzled expression he's suddenly adopted. "Are we just going to sleep?" 

"If you want," Eliot says easily. "Or, potentially..." He slides his hand across the gap between them and stops just short of actually touching Quentin. "We could pick up where we left off?"

Quentin is nodding before he even finishes his sentence, already turning his face up to meet Eliot when he leans over to kiss him - just once, and not for nearly long enough before he pulls back.

"We don't have to, if you're tired," Eliot tells him.

"I'm awake now," Quentin insists, sitting up to chase Eliot's mouth. Laughing, Eliot lets Quentin push him onto his back and is just as eager as he is when they kiss again.

Even with Quentin hovering over him, Eliot takes the lead, gently urging his mouth open and licking his way inside. Quentin tries his best to keep up and not just collapse on top of him, but when Eliot's hands wander up from his shoulders to slide into his hair, focusing becomes increasingly difficult. He's pretty sure he's getting away with it until he feels Eliot start to smile against his mouth, and then his hands tighten in Quentin's hair, pulling just enough to break the kiss. Quentin feels the tug of it through his entire body and gasps when their lips part, embarrassingly close to whining. He opens his eyes to see Eliot grinning smugly up at him.

"I was wondering if you liked that," he murmurs, relaxing his grip in Quentin's hair and cupping his face instead.

Flushing red, Quentin tries and fails to stammer out anything to defend himself with. "It's not— I've never—"

"It's okay," Eliot hushes him. "We can save that bit of self-discovery for another night."

Quentin nods, mostly relieved, but some small part of him is a little bit disappointed. Before he can even begin to unpack that, Eliot leans in again, pulling Quentin down beside him, and it's suddenly hard to think about anything that isn't Eliot's mouth against his. Eliot sets a slower pace, seemingly content to just let Quentin melt against him - which he does, willingly. 

Lying down again lets sleepiness gradually creep back over him, until they're not doing much more than brushing lips and breathing each other's air. Quentin is just awake enough to register Eliot pulling away from him and frowns about it, struggling to sit up. He hears the click of the lamp turning off and then Eliot's arms wind around him again, easing him back down. "Hey, relax, I'm right here."

"Good," Quentin hums. He does relax, pressing into Eliot's warmth and tucking his face against Eliot's neck.

He feels more than hears the laugh that Eliot breathes out. "Of course you're into cuddling."

Quentin huffs tiredly. "If you get up again, I'll fight you."

"I'm not going anywhere," Eliot promises, pulling the covers up around them. He settles with one arm slung over Quentin's waist and the other curled protectively around his head where he's pressed himself under Eliot's chin.

Bundled up in Eliot's big, soft bed with Eliot wrapped around him and his head buzzing pleasantly, Quentin feels… safe, like he's found a hiding place away from everything else. Something about Eliot changes things - they fit together, somehow, slotted into place. With that thought in his mind, Quentin drifts off, letting Eliot's steady breathing lull him to sleep.

\--

Quentin wakes up slowly, contentedly, and vaguely wondering why his pillow is breathing until he's aware enough to remember where he fell asleep. There's a hand in his hair again, stroking softly. It reminds him of when he woke up on the couch, sort of, except better because he knows it's just him and Eliot this time.

He opens his eyes and blinks a few times to get his bearings. He's ended up almost sideways in bed, taking most of the covers with him, and at some point he slid down off the actual pillows to rest his head on Eliot's stomach instead, according to his current view of long legs crossed under the sheets. Quentin smiles and stretches - the hand in his hair pauses for a moment, and he takes the opportunity to roll over and look up at Eliot properly.

He's sitting propped up by pillows with his phone in his hand, looking a little sleep-mussed but still elegant, even without a shirt. Moreso, maybe. He smiles down at Quentin and his other hand resumes its petting. "Morning."

"Is it still morning?" Quentin asks, yawning.

"Yes, we even got the recommended amount of sleep. Or I did, and you got a bit more than that." His hand pauses in Quentin's hair again, smoothing it back from his face. "How are you feeling?"

Quentin thinks about it, closing his eyes and taking stock. In general he feels more rested than he's been in… days, or maybe weeks. "Well, my mouth doesn't taste entirely like an ashtray, so I think I owe you for that." He rolls over again to straighten himself out, then shimmies his way up the bed to flop down beside Eliot. He drops his head on Eliot's shoulder and squints at his phone. "What are you doing?"

"Just some PR," Eliot sighs, flipping through images with his thumb. It takes Quentin a second to realize they're photos from the party. "Todd has this photographer friend who actually took some nice shots last night. I'm untagging Margo and myself from any less-than-flattering ones." He pauses, glancing at Quentin. "I'd do the same for you as well, but you're cute in all of them."

Quentin rolls his eyes. "I'll just take your word for it."

"Oh, but, Q— hold on, look at this." Eliot scrolls back through the photos for a moment, then tilts the screen to show Quentin one specific shot.

It's of the two of them on the couch - not while Quentin was asleep, to his relief, but after - when Eliot brought him back and he was talking to Fen. He looks… happy, like he's genuinely having fun, which is kind of amazing to see captured in a picture. But the part that really catches his attention is Eliot, presses beside him on the couch. While he's mid-laugh at whatever Fen had been saying at that moment, Eliot is looking over at him with a small smile that's just visible over the rim of his drink. Quentin takes a second to be annoyed that he was so oblivious, and then another to process the little thrill that goes through him when he thinks about how Eliot had been looking at him like _that_ when he wasn't even paying attention.

"It's going on the fridge," Eliot says, breaking Quentin out of his thoughts. "Right next to Todd's report card."

Quentin laughs, sitting up to shove him, but Eliot just grins and turns his head to capture Quentin's mouth.

Now that he's not seconds from falling asleep, Quentin kisses back with feeling, trying to put as much of his pleasure and contentment into it as he can. If Eliot is surprised by his enthusiasm he doesn't show it, but he drops his phone to slide his hand over the back of Quentin's neck again. Quentin melts just a little, suddenly struck by the need to be closer to him - so he shoves the blankets away and climbs into Eliot's lap. Eliot makes a pleased noise against his mouth, scratching his nails over the Quentin's nape and making him shiver. He moves his other hand down, dragging slowly over Quentin's stomach and then dipping under his shirt, pulling it up over his chest like he wants it off.

Quentin breaks away to pant against his mouth. "El—"

He's cut off by Eliot's phone buzzing loudly somewhere beside them. Eliot huffs and takes his hand out of Quentin's shirt to fish it out of the sheets.

"Oh, it's Margo," he says, thumbing through the message while Quentin catches his breath. "She says 'it's your turn to make b-fast, also hi Quentin'."

Quentin tugs his shirt back down, blushing when he remembers how Margo had walked in on them the night before. "Hi, Margo," he mumbles.

Eliot quickly types something and then tosses his phone away again with a sigh. "Well, duty calls." He swoops in to kiss Quentin again, then somehow lifts him out of his lap and deposits him in a sprawl across the bed before pulling away to get up. "You can stay here, if you want," he says, grabbing a silky robe from his closet and slipping it on. "We'll keep it down so you can go back to sleep."

Privately, Quentin thinks he's too wound up from having Eliot's tongue in his mouth to ever sleep again, but the bed _is_ still warm. "Maybe, yeah."

He sits up on his elbows just as Eliot takes a step back, his eyes wandering over him. Quentin glances down at his rumpled t-shirt and boxers, sure he must look embarrassingly debauched with his hair a mess from Eliot's hands and his entire mouth tingling - but Eliot seems to be admiring the sight. After a second he shakes his head and leans down over Quentin, pressing another long kiss to his mouth.

"Come see us if you get hungry," he murmurs, then pulls back with a wink and leaves the room, closing the door quietly behind him.

Quentin waits until he hears footsteps descending the stairs before he rolls over and lets out a shaky sigh. If he wasn't wound up before, he sure is now.

He spots Eliot's phone in the blankets and picks it up, considering trying to find the photo of them again before he remembers the brief mention of phone numbers from the night before. Feeling sneaky, he makes himself a new contact, under _Q_. Then he puts the phone down, partially under the covers like it was before, and gets up to find his own phone.

He finds it on the dresser, fully charged with only a few missed notifications. He unplugs it and sits back on the bed to swipe through them - the only important one is a snap from Julia received about an hour ago, a mirror selfie taken in a bedroom he doesn't recognize, but the main focus is Julia's truly impressive bed-head. _Awake but unsure if worth it_ , the caption reads.

Quentin leans across the bed until he can see himself in Eliot's vanity and sends that as a response. He sees Julia has opened it only a few seconds later, and almost immediately his phone buzzes with a text message.

 _[from: Jules]_  
> Are you still at the house??

 _[from: me]_  
> yes we just woke up :P

 _[from: Jules]_  
> Okay 1. I need details but 2. wine-drunk Julia forgot my purse so can you grab it when you leave?  
> Penny is going to drop me off at home in a bit but I don't have my keys lol

 _[from: me]_  
> sure  
> you owe me details too tho

 _[from: Jules]_  
> You first!!!!

She sends a long row of eyes emojis after that. Quentin snorts and closes the message, then gets up to put his jeans back on. He leaves his hoodie in its unceremonious pile on Eliot's floor and heads out of the room.

As he goes downstairs, the smell of something cooking wafts over to him, and in the hallway he can hear whatever it is sizzling. He peeks into the kitchen and sees Eliot at the stove, flipping what looks like a colourful omelette, and Margo leaning on the counter beside him. She spots Quentin first and smiles. "Had enough sleep, finally?"

Quentin gives her a sheepish grin, still amazed that he seems to have accidentally ended up in the exclusive club of people Margo not only tolerates, but will joke around with. "I think I'm caught up, yeah."

He moves to step further into the room but hesitates on the boundary, suddenly remembering the ban Eliot had placed against him entering the kitchen - it was mostly a joke, he thinks, but even if it wasn't, it probably doesn't matter anymore, right? Unless it does?

Before he can decide, Eliot turns around and takes only a second to figure out why Quentin is hovering awkwardly in the doorway. "Kitchen ban lifted," he says, smirking as he beckons Quentin over. Quentin flushes pink at being caught but goes over to join him by the stove, letting Eliot tuck him under his arm. "Good boy."

It sends a tiny thrill down Quentin's spine, which he doesn't fully know what to do with. Margo, on Eliot's other side, makes a face at them.

"I thought we agreed the kitchen is a kink-free zone before noon," she says, unimpressed.

"I don't recall," Eliot hums, pulling away to get plates from the cupboard.

Margo rolls her eyes but accepts the omelette-third he hands her easily enough. Quentin isn't sure what possibly could've happened to make such a specific rule, but he's not sure he wants to know either, so he takes the serving Eliot plates for him and joins him and Margo at the kitchen island.

The omelette is good - Eliot is even better at cooking than he is at mixing drinks, which is really saying something - but sitting between Eliot and Margo while they go through an apparent party-debriefing is nice, too. Quentin wonders how long they spent planning the thing if they can spend an entire meal just talking about results and changes for the next time. He makes a mental note to never mention his birthday around either of them. Margo even gives a very detailed recap of all that they missed while they were, in her words, canoodling.

"Are you sure you don't want to know what _you_ missed during that?" Eliot asks her, waggling his eyebrows while he carries their dishes to the sink.

Margo brandishes her fork at him. "If I want to hear about it, you'll know, because I'll ask." She turns suddenly to Quentin, who very nearly jumps. "Maybe he'll listen if you tell him to shut up."

"I don't think so," Quentin says wryly. "I try at work all the time, and it doesn't usually do anything."

"Rude," Eliot huffs.

Laughing, Margo gets up to give Eliot a sympathetic pat. "I like this one," she tells him, then turns back to smile at Quentin again. "Do you need a ride home? I can call Josh."

Quentin shakes his head, standing up as well. "No, I'll just walk. I should actually start heading back pretty soon, Julia's locked out."

Margo nods. "Speaking of Josh, I'm gonna scope out the backyard situation, because if his groupies left anything behind, Josh is fronting the pizza bill." She points at Eliot. "And you're gonna tell me when Todd wakes up, because the pizza was his idea and we _have_ to nip that in the bud."

"It was good pizza, though," Quentin says. Margo just sighs and heads out the sliding door. Quentin frowns after her and turns to Eliot for backup. "Wasn't it?" 

Eliot gives him a very patient smile. "Don't worry," he says, slinging his arm over Quentin's shoulders again. "We'll make an epicure of you, yet."

Quentin's phone buzzes then, and he leans into Eliot to dig it out of his pocket. It's another message from Julia, letting him know she's on her way - and then another eyes emoji, which Eliot laughs at before he slides off Quentin to lead the way to the front door. 

"I can't believe Julia got wild enough to forget her purse," he says, crossing his arms as Quentin pulls his jacket on. "Kady's influence, I guess. Please grill her about that for me, by the way."

Quentin snickers. "She's gonna grill me about you, so it's only fair." He grabs Julia's purse where it's hanging in the closet and makes sure her keys are inside before putting it over his shoulder and opening the door.

"What are you going to tell her?" Eliot asks, leaning against the doorframe as Quentin steps out. "Only the good stuff, I hope."

Humming, Quentin turns back to smile at him. "Yeah, I won't say anything about your newfound investment in my skincare."

Eliot gives him a very serious look. "She'll take my side on that, I guarantee it."

For a moment Quentin imagines Julia and Eliot teaming up against him for any reason, and resolves to keep them far away from each other if he can help it. "I definitely won't tell her, then," he says with a grimace.

"Fine," Eliot sighs dramatically, pulling his robe tighter around himself. "Anyway, sorry to make you do the walk of shame."

Quentin hadn't even thought about that. He's not sure it really counts after what was essentially just a sleepover, but he shrugs anyway. "You'll just have to make it up to me."

Eliot looks up at him, a grin slowly spreading across his face. "Yeah? With what?" Quentin flounders a little, but cuts off when Eliot reaches out to gently tug his hair again. "I can think of a few things." 

Quentin swallows hard. "I'll, um. Get back to you." 

"Probably not something to discuss on the front lawn," Eliot laughs, taking his hand back. He moves to step back from the door, but pauses halfway into it. "I'll see you at work?"

"Yeah." Quentin makes a real effort to start walking but doesn't quite manage it.

Eliot watches him amusedly for a moment, then leans down for a kiss, soft and slow. Quentin sighs into it, pushing up on tiptoe to follow him when he pulls back. "Okay. Go save Julia."

"Julia," Quentin says, blinking a couple times as he turns away. "Right." He stumbles down the front steps and up the driveway, looking back just once at the curb to see Eliot watching from the door, still in his robe. He gives Quentin a little wave, and Quentin can't help smiling as he waves back. Feeling giddy but content, he sets off for home.

When he's cutting back through campus, he gets another text. He assumes it's Julia telling him to hurry up, but when he checks it's from _EL_. Quentin grins as he opens the message - Eliot must've had the same idea as he did, and put his number in Quentin's phone the night before.

 _[from: EL]_  
> buying u moisturizer for xmas

Quentin is suddenly very glad no one is around campus on a weekend morning to see him beaming at his phone.

 _[from: me]_  
> ok i'll get you the 1st fillory book :)

 _[from: EL]_  
> even though i have it already?  
> (that's a joke i swear i've never read it)

Before Quentin can reply, Eliot sends him a photo - it's of his hoodie, no longer in a pile on Eliot's floor but laid out on his now-made bed. 

_[from: EL]_  
> uh oh looks like you'll have to come back

 _[from: me]_  
> woops  
> i guess so :/

Eliot could definitely bring it to him at work instead, but Quentin has a feeling that reminding him of that would be pointless. Plus, he kind of likes the idea of having something of his at Eliot's house, in his room. Maybe he could even forget it there more than once. He has other hoodies, after all - and something tells him, smiling down at the winking face he's gotten in reply, that Eliot won't mind.

**Author's Note:**

> wow. join me on the [twitter](http://twitter.com/marcelucien_) where i talk about bread all the time or the [tumblr](http://aniallating.tumblr.com) where i'm just gay


End file.
